Adult learning is more than alternative education, self-help, self-study, or training. Self-directed inquiry can free you from the cultural traps of today’s postmodern world. When you think for yourself, you take control of your life. Intellectual ability and critical thinking soon become substitutes for paper credentials. Simply stated aggressive learning is the most practical guide to a passionately rewarding life.

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Imagine what would happen
if the referees calling penalties in professional football were paid exorbitant
salaries by only the richest teams. One
thing is sure: we would deem it a sham. If the game was obviously rigged, most people
would stop watching. Ironically, that’s precisely what we have today in
American politics. Our elected representatives (our supposed economic referees)
are being openly bribed because not enough of us are watching and so many of our citizens don’t vote.

Both of our major
political parties are unduly influenced by moneyed special interests; one is
just more blatant and ideologically open about it than the other. Unfortunately,
the reason many people don’t pay attention to politics is that they know the
system is corrupt and they feel powerless.

Because of special
interest lobbying, corporations never have to punt. They own our referees. Through
legislative influence they have effectively devastated labor unions while enabling
banks to charge excessive fees for administering customer accounts and to move
away from traditional services to casino-like investments where profits are
capitalized. They take big risks, fully confident that, because of their size,
catastrophic losses will be socialized.

Some of our largest and
most profitable businesses pay poverty-level wages with the assurance that
taxpayers will support their employees with food stamps. The sheer amount of
corporate profits in offshore banks to escape taxation is breathtaking, while
lobbying by the military industrial complex is so effective, our generals and
admirals can’t even cancel the manufacture of weapons they don’t want or need.

Inequality has been escalating at
record rates for decades, a direct result of legislation on behalf of those
with an economic advantage and the power to leverage their influence at every
opportunity. One strategy has been to incite public anger at the poor for not
pulling their weight and appearing to game the system by getting something for
nothing, even when the evidence shows that’s not true. This
feeds people’s inherent tribalistic tendencies because blaming the poor allows
one to identify vicariously with the rich and powerful.

Capitalism is an
incredibly dynamic system capable of both good and ill, but today’s economic
playing field is not in any sense level. Capitalism works best with strictly
regulated competition. In professional football, we don’t hear arguments about a
minimum wage because teams have to compete for players, causing compensation to
soar.

The same principle
applies to the workplace. Capitalism only works effectively for working people
when business has to compete for employees. To assume that human beings should
work full time for poverty wages in the richest country in the world is as absurd
as it would be to play football without protective gear.

The notion that free
markets magically arrive at fair wages for work performed is a fairy tale. Nothing
is free, and our laws for business and labor are biased by design. The
commercial usage of natural resources does not remotely reflect its
environmental costs. Moreover, elected officials’ dependence on private donations
means legislation is never free of partiality. And finally, far too many of the
rules and regulations we live by are created in secret.

Football, of course, is just a
game and may seem to be of little significance, but we are drawn to it
precisely because of our tribalistic instinct for belonging. Sports fans
display near fanaticism in their insistence that referees be fair when calling
penalties. Notice how upset theyget when a penalty
appears unjust. But building an economy where people
can earn a decent living is more important by orders of magnitude than scoring
points in a game. That we insist on fairness in sports contests, and
not in matters where so much more is at stake, reveals a tragic flaw in human
behavior.

The only way we will ever
achieve a level economic playing field in which the interests of average
citizens are matters of real political concern is to publicly fund elections
and forbid the bribing of our elected officials. Until this is accomplished,
the ideologies of the Left and Right will always matter less than the degree of
corruption we’re willing to accept.

The first order of
business is to stop cheerleading with the mindset of the 1950s. The American
aspirations for hard work and self-reliance haven’t changed, but our methodologies
for contracting and compensating wage labor have been radically degraded and diminished
over the last half-century. The rules, regulations, and taxes that created the
middle class have been slowly but steadily altered beyond recognition.

If professional football
had kept pace with our politics these past five decades, the Wall Street team
would take the field with equipment and talent comparable to what the New
England Patriots have today. The opposing team representing working people, however,
would be an assembly of high school B-stringers, who would show up without
helmets or shoulder pads. Every time they got the ball, it would automatically be
fourth down with a fifteen-yard penalty tacked on and no time-outs remaining.

In November 2016, it will
be time for a new lineup of referees to take the field. Let’s make sure they
have an edict for public funding of elections and are individuals who will strive
to overturn Citizens United legislatively. Let’s elect representatives who will
look out for average Americans with an implicit understanding that, if they fail,
they will be held accountable. The penalty will be that they’ll be deemed off
sides, out of bounds, and soon out of office.